Broadway will take a swing at the Yankees again in 2027, with “Damn Yankees” set to return in a new baseball-era frame and with Major League Baseball joining the production. Previews begin March 24 at Manhattan’s Marquis Theatre, followed by opening night on April 20.
Quick facts
- “Damn Yankees” will be revived on Broadway for the first time since 1994.
- The production shifts the action to 2000, after the Yankees had won three straight World Series championships.
- Neil Patrick Harris will play Applegate, Julianne Hough will play Lola, and Austin Scott takes on Young Joe Hardy.
- MLB and MLB Studios are partners on the musical, a first for a Broadway production of its kind.
- The Baltimore Orioles replace the long-defunct Washington Senators as New York’s opponent.
The musical traces back to Douglass Wallop’s 1954 novel, “The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant.” Its first Broadway run opened May 5, 1955, but this edition will not simply dust off the old scorebook.
Julie Boardman, Lia Vollack and Haley Swindal are producing the revival. Swindal is the granddaughter of late Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. Sergio Trujillo will direct and choreograph after working with writers Will Power and Doug Wright on the new adaptation.
Trujillo moved the story into the 21st century, choosing 2000 as a moment that still carries the weight of the Yankees dynasty while allowing the cast and clubs to reflect a more current America. The Senators could not remain the opposing club because the franchise no longer exists.
The Washington Nationals were considered, but their National League alignment did not match the old Senators’ place in the American League. Baltimore, Trujillo said, became the logical rival because it gave the baseball setting a more authentic fit.
That adjustment reaches the center of the story. Scott’s Young Joe Hardy is an African American Orioles player with extraordinary abilities, and the character’s pursuit carries more than a simple pennant-race assignment.
Scott said the rewritten role gives Joe personal stakes alongside the chance to lift his club. He pointed to a diverse Orioles roster as a reflection of the country and of modern baseball, saying the production offers an opportunity to celebrate that broader American picture.
Harris, Hough and Scott made a late-Sunday-morning visit to Yankee Stadium, where they met Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge. Judge spent time with Scott on baseball details as the actor prepares to play a player rather than merely wear the uniform.
Scott said he is entering the role as a student of the sport, its language and its clubhouse culture. He has watched extensive game footage, particularly of Judge, and said the Yankees star’s appeal reaches beyond home-run power to the confidence he brings onto the field.
Harris, meanwhile, praised Hough ahead of her first Broadway musical role. Known widely for her television work on “Dancing with the Stars,” Hough arrives as Lola with what Harris called a full set of performer’s tools: dancing, acting and the ability to handle the demands Trujillo will place on her.
MLB’s participation gives the show an unusual official tie to the game it lampoons and celebrates. Deputy commissioner of business and media Noah Garden said baseball’s reach should extend beyond the diamond, noting that both baseball crowds and Broadway audiences are drawn to drama, pressure and the possibility of seeing something memorable unfold.
For a musical built around pennant fever, a deal with the devil and New York baseball anxiety, the new “Damn Yankees” will arrive with a different opponent, a different era and a direct connection to the sport itself.
